An incredible new scientific experiment successfully took unborn lambs and grew each of them inside an artificial womb called a biobag. Over the four-week process, the lambs could be seen on camera moving in ways that replicated the growth process of babies inside a human mother’s womb.
Researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia created the artificial womb, which basically looks like a giant Ziploc bag with filled with clear fluid. The environment of each artificial womb allowed all of the lamb fetuses to survive and thrive.
“I’m still blown away, whenever I’m down looking at our lambs,” Children’s Hospital fetal surgeon Alan Flake told reporters. “I think it’s just an amazing thing to sit there and watch the fetus on this support acting like it normally acts in the womb.”
You can watch a video of one of the lambs moving inside the biobag here.
Lambs were used because of their close genetic proximity to humans. While all eight lambs survived the incubation process, seven were then euthanized so they could be studied. However, one had grown so much it was considered viable and remains alive today.
The researchers say the experiment offers great promise for replicating the process with human fetuses, with tests likely to begin within three to five years.
Now, before you start thinking this is one of those infamous scenes from The Matrix come to life, it’s important to understand that these lambs were not conceived inside artificial wombs.
“I don’t want this to be visualized as fetuses hanging on the wall in bags,” Dr. Flake said.
Rather, they were removed from their mother’s wombs and placed inside the artificial incubators. The idea is that such artificial wombs could one day soon be used to save human fetuses that would not otherwise survive premature births. Neonatal intensive care units around the world already do an incredible job of saving the lives of premature babies. However, those that are born before 26 weeks only have a survival rate of around 50 percent.
But the artificial womb could help revolutionize the process and extend human viability for babies that are not able to remain inside a human womb for whatever reason.
Ladder leads out of darkness.Photo credit 
Woman's reflection in shadow.Photo credit 
Young woman frazzled.Photo credit 
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.